Field of Invention
The present invention relates to browsing digital media assets on a display device and, more particularly, to browsing digital media assets with assistance of audio cues.
Description of the Related Art
Personal computers supporting multimedia usage typically operate media management programs for managing various digital media assets, such as music files and video files. Media management programs typically utilize a graphical user interface that allows a user to play, sort, modify, store and catalog their media. Conventionally, graphical user interfaces have a text-based browse window that allow a user to browse through and select a particular media track for playback. More recently, graphical user interfaces have been able to provide an image-based browse environment in which a user can browse images (e.g., cover art) that pertain to corresponding digital media assets. The media management programs may also be linked with an online media store so that new media can be purchased and transferred to the personal computer and subsequently managed by the media management program. One example of a media management program is iTunes™ manufactured by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., and one example of an online media store is iTunes Store™.
Today, media playback devices, such as media players, have storage capacity to store large collections of media, such as songs (music). With such large media collections, in order for a user to select a particular song to be played by the media player, the user typically navigates through a long list of songs. As an example, the user could interact with the media player to display a list of artists that have songs that are stored within the media collection on the media player. The user then scrolls through the list and selects an appropriate song to be played. Unfortunately, however, as the storage capacity of a media player increases, the number of songs stored in a media collection on the media player also increases. Consequently, the list through which users must navigate in order to select a song can be extensive.
Therefore, there remains a need for improved techniques for browsing digital media assets.